An Evening at the LBL

For the third year in a row, I attended the River Valley Geocachers "An Evening at the LBL" event held by fishinpair. For the third time I was not disappointed. Like the previous events, this year's event again featured a night cache called Midnight Maze (Nightcache). This one had a new twist. Previous night caches, Flashlight Required and Dead Fulks Night Cache, have one starting at one point, follow reflectors to the ammo can. This cache was different. In last year's event, one huge group consisting of 40+ cachers marched around and found the cache. As a group it was easy, just follow the leader. This time, following the crowd would not work. Team work was required, marking dead ends, starting locations was needed. It was a cache to remember. One thing that will stick in my mind is that a hands free headlight was of little value. In the high grass and weeds, the light attracted insects which interfered with looking for the cache. I had to hold my hands free light.

The event went without a hitch, well almost. GEO.JOE asked Pirate of the Cache 'n Carry to bring firewood. We later remember that the front gate at Energy Campground closed at 5 pm. We traveled to Hillsman's Ferry Campground for firewood. While leaving the Energy Lake Campground, we encountered a 5-foot Timber Rattlesnake. The snake was large and was very up happy with our company. Regrettably, neither one of our digital cameras were functioning and were unable to take this classic photo. This marked only the second time in my life of an encounter with a rattlesnake in the wild. The first occurred in 1984 while hiking at Philmont Boy Scout Ranch in the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico.

We arrived at the event and unloaded the firewood and told of our snake encounter. Being that I did some caching along the way in Farmington, Murray and the center of the LBL, I relaxed for a bit and socialized with Airmapper and B&TLand. Later, after gaining some energy, I talked to cachers in the US Army from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.

The better half of fishinpair hosted the event and she was busy on the grill cooking the hot dogs. She did a great job cooking and being the host. I wish to thank all of those involved in the event and bringing food. It was great.

After the Midnight Maze, cachers separated for other night caches and since I was so close to Honker Hill, we gathered a group for that cache. In the moonlight, we found the parking area and the levee. While waiting for B&TLand to return, we observed a fan boat roaming the shore, I guess they were fishing. Seemed like it was more noise production than fishing, but that's just my opinion. Other arrived and we walked across the levee, up the hill and found the difficult cache in the dark. Afterwards, we walked back and went our separate ways. Pirate of the Cache 'n Carry invited me to stay overnight at his 34-foot air conditioned camper, I did not resist and stayed the night at Energy Campground. Pirate of the Cache 'n Carry being the honorable host that he is, also invited Solarwib to stay the night and saved him the two hour drive in the early morning hours.

The following morning, I chatted with Solarwib and later went home and grabbed one cache in Murray on the way home.